A QUICK glance in a golf pro’s bag can be quite revealing of the player’s character and style of play.

I remember marvelling at Sandy Lyle’s bag, crammed with gleaming forged blades from one-iron upwards, not a rescue club or gimmick in sight. The tools of a true master craftsman.

In Richie Ramsay’s case it was the clubhead cover that caught the eye and not in the way of these daft novelty stuffed animals that are all rage.

No, Ramsay’s is simple, sleek white bearing the Ryder Cup logo and written under it Hazeltine 2016. Surely some mistake, considering Gleneagles 2014 has been branded on Scottish golf’s psyche for the last decade.

But for a guy who doesn’t hit the ball a mile, few guys play the long game quite so well as Ramsay. To the Aberdonian a dream Ryder Cup debut on home soil has already been written off, thanks mostly to a three-month injury lay-off.

The next venue has even more emotional resonance. Hazeltine is where Ramsay won the 2006 US Amateur title, met an American girl named Angela the same week and returned to marry her six years later.

The idea of adding a Ryder Cup debut to his reasons to love the Minnesota venue fits nicely in his career plan – and Ramsay said of the clubhead cover: “It’s a reminder for me not to take my eye off the ball.

“I’m a realist so my chance of making the team for Gleneagles is past unless I got on a hot streak where I win the Scottish Open to get in The Open and win that as well.

“Things might have been different if I’d been fit to play in the Middle East at the start of this year. Top 50 was the goal and if I’d managed that Gleneagles could have been a possibility for the Ryder Cup.

“But I’m always looking up to four or five years in advance anyway. Golf is a sport where you don’t just turn into a world beater – you have to work hard at it.

“When I won in Switzerland people came up and said, ‘It’s good your short game worked out’, but that isn’t a coincidence.

“I’d gone to Atlanta and improved my chipping and that sort of thing is all part of a masterplan to get better.

“A few guys like Rory McIlroy have unbelievable talent but the rest of us have to work at it. Most guys peak in their mid-30s. I’m 30 now so I’m coming into my peak period in the next five years so that takes in 2016.”

That single-minded, driven focus has been a key part of Ramsay’s make-up from the moment he burst on to the scene with amateur success at Hazeltine that earned him a dream spot in the Masters, US Open and The Open at Carnoustie.

Even on an exalted stage like Augusta National, playing with Phil Mickelson and Adam Scott in the first two rounds, Ramsay refused to meekly accept missing the cut by just three shots.

Almost seven years on to the day, I remember him trudging off the 18th green and saying: “There’s a lot of positives but I’m not one of these guys who shies away from the facts and thinks that’s great. I came here to make the cut and didn’t make it.”

Age and experience have calmed the fiery side of his nature but the drive and aspiration to go on to greater things clearly still burn as strongly as ever.